The teenager Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar) is traveling along her summer vacations with her father, the EPA inspector Steve Malone (Terry Kinney),her stepmother Carol Malone (Meg Tilly) and her young stepbrother Andy (Reilly Murphy) to a military base where her father will inspect some toxic products. In a gas station bathroom on the road, she is scared by a soldier that advises her to not sleep, because they get you when you sleep. Once in the base, she becomes friend of Jean Platt (Christine Elise),the daughter of the general in charge of the base, and the helicopter pilot Tim Young (Billy Wirth). Marti and her father see that people are acting strange, and sooner they find that aliens are cloning the human beings in the base and invading Earth.

Abel Ferrara's remake of Don Siegel's 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is more violent than the original movie, but is also very good. There are three particular moments that I like very much: the first one is certainly when Marti throws Andy from the helicopter. I believe very few directors would have the courage to make such scene. The second one is the scary screams of Carol and Jean later. Last but not the least is the scene in the hospital when Gabrielle Anwar is naked and partially shows her breast. Although the end of this version is happier than the original one, it is open with the helicopter landing and Carol's voice saying "Where you gonna go? Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere, cause there's no one like you left." And then, "THE END" is highlighted with uppercases, probably meaning that Marti and Tim would be the last human beings on Earth. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Invasores de Corpos - A Invasão Continua" ("Bodies' Invaders - The Invasion Continues")

Note: On 05 July 2015, I saw this movie again.

The original story by Jack Finney is thrown headlong into the 1990s in this, the third adaptation of the original classic of paranoia, following the other versions released in 1956 and 1978. While this film could have been a total fiasco, much like other remakes we've been seeing in the '90s, the one saving grace is the presence of director Abel Ferrara, who, along with Stuart Gordon and Larry Cohen lifts the average material to more than it might have been. However, it might not be enough...

The trouble with horror films of the 1990s is that even when they do get something right, they do just about everything else wrong. WISHMASTER had great gory ideas, but a tepid plot. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, well... that didn't really have anything did it? Anyhow I digress. BODY SNATCHERS is full of atmospheric imagery and bursting with style, but sadly the plot and script are turgid, relentlessly chewed up hundreds of times before in other films, and therefore lacking any real sense of menace.

Ferrara gets carried away with the Raimi-like diagonal camera angles, filling every scene with haunting shadows. Which is great, you know, but somewhat...pretentious? Unfortunately the cast is populated with dense, unlikable characters, and even the little boy turns out to be a stereotyped whining American brat. The females are bland, the actor playing the father is expressionless, with the only believable character being Forest Whitaker (ironically his character is almost an exact replica of Kevin McCarthy's hero in the original classic). This really drags down the attention level. Plot wise, the idea of setting the story in a military base is quite effective, but once you realise that it's just a one-note idea which is never fully explored, then you feel that it's quite a letdown.

The film is in two halves. In the first half, there are vague shadows and sounds but nothing much really happens. After an effects-laden scene in the middle of the film, it becomes one elongated chase movie, all set at night and involving people running in a variety of settings. Does this sound like your idea of fun? Not really. The film does benefit from some good special effects in the form of the alien pods, although they're almost exact replicas of the pods from 1978's sublime INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

There is some nudity put in to spice things up which seems quite desperate, and two great scenes which make the film worth watching. However apart from these key moments and an ambiguous ending, the film never really goes anywhere. If it was original I would give it a higher mark but the trouble is that we've seen it all before, twice before, and it was better both of those times so the third outing just appears to be a tired rerun of the earlier events.

The EPA sends Steve Malone (Terry Kinney) to a military base in Alabama for a month. He brings along his daughter Marti (Gabrielle Anwar),his second wife Carol (Meg Tilly) and their son Andy. Marti is scared by a soldier who tells her that "They get you when you sleep". She befriends base commander (R. Lee Ermey)'s wild daughter Jenn Platt (Christine Elise). She falls for chopper pilot Tim Young (Billy Wirth). There are strange things happening and Maj. Collins (Forest Whitaker) asks Steve if it could be chemical toxins. Military personnel delivers mysterious boxes to the Malones. Carol is the first to turn.

The major drawback is that the premise is known to everybody. There is no surprises except for the sci-fi uninitiated. The bathtub scene is pretty good although it's nothing shocking. This is a solid execution. The army base location is pretty good. Body snatchers can be camouflaged by being stoic soldiers and they are pretty creepy. There is nothing wrong with this version but it adds nothing new to the idea.